2140. Pounding Almonds
The almonds should be dried for a few days after being blanched. Set them in a warm place, strewn singly over a dish or tin. A little powdered lump sugar will assist the pounding. They may be first chopped small, and rolled with a rolling pin.—Almond Paste may be made in the same manner.
2141. Blanched Almonds
Put the almonds into cold water, and heat them slowly to scalding; then take them out and peel them quickly, throwing them into cold water as they are done. Dry them in a cloth before serving.
2142. Freezing without Ice or Acids
The use of ice in cooling depends upon the fact of its requiring a vast quantity of heat to convert it from a solid into a liquid state, or in other words, to melt it; and the heat so required is obtained from those objects with which it may be in contact. A pound of ice requires nearly as much heat to melt it as would be sufficient to make a pound of cold water boiling hot; hence its cooling power is extremely great. But ice does not begin to melt until the temperature is above the freezing point, and therefore it cannot be employed in freezing liquids, &c., but only in cooling them. If, however, any substance is mixed with ice which is capable of causing it to melt more rapidly, and at a lower temperature, a still more intense cooling effect is the result; such a substance is common salt, and the degree of cold produced by the mixture of one part of salt with two parts of snow or pounded ice is greater than thirty degrees below freezing.
In making ice-creams and dessert ices, the following articles are required:—Pewter ice-pots with tightly-fitting lids, furnished with handles; wooden ice-pails, to hold the rough ice and salt—the pails should be stoutly made, about the same depth as the ice pots, and nine or ten inches more in diameter, with a hole in the side, fitted with a good cork, in order that the water from the melted ice may be drawn off as required. In addition, a broad spatula, about four inches long, rounded at the end, and furnished with a long wooden handle, is necessary to scrape the frozen cream from the sides of the ice-pot, and for mixing the whole smoothly together. When making ices, place the mixture of cream and fruit to be frozen in the ice-pot, cover it with the lid, and put the pot in the ice-pail, which proceed to fill up with coarsely-pounded ice and salt, in the proportion of about one part of salt to three of ice; let the whole remain a few minutes (if covered by a blanket so much the better), then whirl the pot briskly by the handle for a few minutes, take off the lid, and with the spatula scrape the iced cream from the sides, mixing the whole smoothly; put on the lid, and whirl again, repeating all the operations every few minutes until the whole of the cream is well frozen.
Great care and considerable labour are required in stirring, so that the whole cream may be smoothly frozen, and not in hard lumps. When finished, if it is required to be kept any time, the melted ice and salt should be allowed to escape, by removing the cork, and the pail filled up with fresh materials. It is scarcely necessary to add, that if any of the melted ice and salt is allowed to mix with the cream, the latter is spoiled. From the difficulty of obtaining ice in places distant from large towns, and in hot countries, and from the impracticability of keeping it any length of time, or, in fact, of keeping small quantities more than a few hours its use is much limited, and many have been the attempts to obtain an efficient substitute. For this purpose various salts have been employed, which, when dissolved in water, or in acids, absorb a sufficient amount of heat to freeze substances with which they may be placed in contact. We shall not attempt, in this article, to describe all the various freezing mixtures that have been devised, but speak only of those which have been found practically useful.